in order that they may produce pleasure and be useful, not, as we shall see, in order that labourers may be kept hard at work. Now, when trade is left free it gives rise to division of labour, not only between town and town, county and county, but between the most distant nations of the earth. Thus is created what may be called the territorial division of labour. Commerce between nation and nation is not only one of the best means of increasing wealth and saving labour, but it brings us nearer to the time when all nations will live in harmony, as if they were but one nation.

31. The Combination of Labour. We now see what great advantages arise from each man learning a single trade thoroughly. This is called the division of labour, because it divides up the work into a great many different operations; nevertheless, it leads men to assist each other, and to work together in manufacturing the same goods. Thus, in producing a book, a great many trades must assist each other: type-founders cast the type; mechanics make the printing press; the paper is manufactured at the paper works; printers' ink is prepared at other works; the publishers arrange the business; the author supplies the copy; the compositors set up the type; the reader corrects the proofs; the pressmen work off the printed sheets; then there are still the bookbinders, and the booksellers, besides a great many other small trades which supply the tools wanted by the principal trades. · Thus, society is like a very complicated machine, in which there is a great number of wheels, and wheels within wheels; each part goes on attending to its own business, and doing the same work over and over again. There is what we should call a complex organization (Greek, opyavov, instrument), that is to say, different people and different trades work as instruments of each other, all assisting in the ultimate result.

But it is to be observed that nobody plans out these systems of divided labour; indeed few people ever know how many trades there are, and how they are

connected together. There are said to be about thirtysix distinct kinds of employment in making and putting together the parts of a piano; there are about forty trades engaged in watchmaking; in the cotton business there are more than a hundred occupations. But new trades are frequently created, especially when any new discovery takes place; thus, there are at least sixteen different trades occupied in photography, or in making the things required by photographers; and railways have produced whole series of employments which did not exist fifty years ago. These trades arise without any Act of Parliament to make them or allow them. There is no law to say how many trades there shall be, nor how many people shall go into each trade, because nobody can tell what will be wanted in future years. These things are arranged by a kind of social instinct. Each person takes up the kind of work which seems to suit him and to pay him best at the time.

Another and a totally different kind of combination of labour arises when men arrange to assist each other in doing the same work. Thus, sailors pulling at the same rope combine their labour together; other instances are, carrying the same ladder, rowing the same boat, and so forth. In this case there is said to be simple combination of labour, because the men do the same sort of work. When the men have different .operations to perform, there is said to be complex combination of labour, as when one man points a pin and another makes the head. On board a ship there is both simple and complex combination. When several men work at the same capstan the combination is simple, because one man does exactly the same as the others. But the captain, mate, steersman, carpenter, boatswain, and cook work together in complex combination, since each attends to his own proper duties. Similarly, in a company of soldiers the privates act together in simple combination, but the officers of different ranks have distinct duties to perform, so that

the combination becomes complex. Men who thus assist each other are usually able to do far more work than if they acted separately.

32. Disadvantages of the Division of Labour. There are certainly some evils which arise out of the great division of labour now existing in civilised countries. These evils are of no account compared with the immense benefits which we receive; still it is well to notice them.

In the first place, division of labour tends to make a man's power narrow and restricted; he does one kind of work so constantly, that he has no time to learn and practice other kinds of work. A man becomes, as it has been said, worth only the tenth part of a pin; that is, there are men who know only how to make, for instance, the head of a pin. In the time of the Romans it was said, ne sutor ultra crepidam, let not the shoemaker go beyond his last. When a man accustomed only to making pins or shoes goes into the far west states of America, he finds himself unfitted for doing all the kinds of hard work required from a settler. The poor peasant from Norway or Sweden, who seems at first sight a less intelligent man, is able to build his own house, till the ground, tend his horse, and in a rough way, make his own carts, implements, and household furniture. Even the Red Indian is much better able to take care of himself in a new country than the educated mechanic. The only thing to be said is that the skilled shoemaker, or mechanic of whatever sort, must endeavour to keep to the trade which he has learnt so well. It is a misfortune both for himself and for other people if he is obliged to undertake work which he cannot do so well.

A second disadvantage of the division of labour is that trade becomes very complicated, and when deranged the results are ruinous to some people. Each person learns to supply only a particular kind of goods, and if change of fashion

or any other cause leads to a falling off in the demand for that kind of goods, the producer is left in poverty, until he can learn another trade. At one time the making of crinoline skirts for ladies was a large and profitable trade; now it has ceased almost entirely, and those who learnt the business have had to seek other employments. But each trade is generally well supplied with hands perfectly trained to the work, and it is very difficult for fresh workmen, especially when old, to learn the new work, and compete with those who have long practised it. In some cases this has been successfully done; thus the Cornish miners, when the mines in Cornwall were no longer profitable, went into the collieries, where more hewers of coal were much wanted. But, generally speaking, it is very difficult to find a new employment in England, and this is a strong reason why trades-unions should make no objection to new men entering a trade to which they have not been brought up. The colliers tried to keep the Cornish miners out of the coal pits. In order to keep their own wages as high as possible they would let other men starve. But this is a very selfish and hurtful way of acting. If every trade were thus to try and keep all other people away, as if the trade were their own property, there would constantly be a number of unfortunate people brought to the workhouse through no fault of their own. It is most important, therefore, to maintain a man's right to do whatever kind of work he can get. It is one of the first and most necessary rights of a labourer to labour in any honest way he finds most profitable to himself. Labour must be free.

CHAPTER V.

CAPITAL.

33. What is capital? We will now endeavour to understand the nature of the third requisite

of production, called capital, which consists of wealth used to help us in producing more wealth. All capital is wealth, but it is not true that all wealth is capital. If a man has a stock of food, or a stock of money with which he buys food, and he merely lives upon this without doing any labour, his stock is not considered to be capital, because he is not producing wealth in the meantime. But if he is occupied in building a house, or sinking a well, or making a cart, or producing anything which will afterwards save labour and give utility, then his stock is capital.

The great advantage of capital is that it enables us to do work in the least laborious way. If a man wants to convey water from a well to his house, and has very little capital, he can only get a bucket and carry every bucket full separately; this is very laborious. If he has more capital, he can get a barrel and wheel it on a barrow, which takes off a large part of the weight; thus he saves much labour by the labour spent upon the barrel and barrow. If he has still more capital his best way will be to make a canal, or channel, or even to lay a metal pipe all the way from the well to his house; this costs a great deal of labour at the time, but, when once it is made, the water will perhaps run down by its own weight, and all the rest of his life he will be saved from the trouble of carrying water.

34. Fixed and Circulating Capitals. Capital is usually said to be either fixed or circulating capital, and we ought to learn very thoroughly the difference between these two kinds. Fixed capital consists of factories, machines, tools, ships, railways, docks, carts, carriages, and other things, which last a long time, and assist work. It does not include, indeed, all kinds of fixed property. Churches, monuments, pictures, books, ornamental trees, &c., last a long time, but they are not fixed capital, because they are not used to help us in producing new wealth. They may